Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Allison has a very old tattoo of a tribal unicorn on her lower back. It's still there... but you can't see it any more ;)

I met with Allison over a year ago about her tattoo cover-up/rework plan. She wanted to incorporate a tree, and the runic symbol for "journey" (the R-shaped symbol on the top right). Here's the first design I worked up for her last fall:

She was unsure about the design, and we lost contact for little while. Over the course of a year, tragedy struck in her life and her brother suffered serious injuries from an accident. He continues to make a miraculous recovery, and when Allison and I reconnected about her tattoo idea, it had taken a new direction. Her idea had focused on the journey she had been on in life, and the gratitude she felt for the course it had taken. She asked me to incorporate the respective phrase in Sanskrit. I took the phrase to my good friend Michael who is fluent in Sanskrit for an accurate translation. Here's the final sketch for Allison before we put it on her:

Below is an alternate design I came up with for Allison during the time between meetings. She liked it, but wasn't set on keeping with the original unicorn theme.

Gretchen wanted to tell the story of her life through a Cherry Blossom Branch. The dried petals blowing from dead branches of hard times in the past, to the lush, vibrant change with the birth of her daughter, to the new, budding future that lies ahead. An elegant piece for an elegant woman. I hid a butterfly cocoon on one of the branches for her daughter, Piper... can you spot it?

Zed has a whole lot of Celtic blood running through his veins. He wanted a design that would be a seal of protection, a tribute to family, loyalty, and respect, and guarded by a blue dragon. We took a non-traditional approach to placement, with the dragon's head wrapping over the front of his shin, and balanced it out with the weight of the tail on the lower left.